Articles by Jeffrey Gettleman

NAIROBI, Kenya — He has been charged with heinous crimes, accused of using a vast fortune to bankroll death squads that slaughtered women and children. His running mate also faces charges of crimes against humanity, and as Kenya’s election drew closer, the Obama administration’s top official for Africa issued a thinly veiled warning during a conference call, saying that Kenyans are, of course, free to pick their own leaders but that “choices have consequences.”

NAIROBI, Kenya — Wendy Sherman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, visited Somalia on Sunday, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to set foot in the country in more than 20 years, the State Department announced Monday.

KAMPALA, Uganda — The presidents of Sudan and South Sudan signed a long-awaited cooperation agreement on Thursday, paving the way for the resumption of oil exports and casting their ailing economies a desperately needed lifeline. But several analysts said the deal came up far short.

NAIROBI, Kenya — The African Union is considering an ambitious plan to stabilize Somalia that could involve using thousands of Ethiopian troops to open a new front against the al-Shabab militant group, officials of the union said Thursday.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who began a movement to reforest her country by paying poor women a few shillings to plant trees and who went on to become the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize, died here Sunday. She was 71.

DOLO, Somalia — Is the world about to watch 750,000 Somalis starve to death? U.N. warnings could not be clearer. A drought-induced famine is steadily creeping across Somalia and tens of thousands of people have already died. The Islamist militant group al-Shabab is blocking most aid agencies from accessing the areas it controls, and in the next few months, three-quarters of a million people could run out of food, U.N. officials say.

Kenya’s rival leaders broke their tense standoff on Thursday, agreeing to share power in a deal that may end the violence that has engulfed this nation but could mark the beginning of a long and difficult political relationship.

Sarah Wangoi has spent her entire life — all 70 years of it — in the Rift Valley. But last month, she was chased off her farm by a mob that called her a foreigner. She now sleeps on the cold floor of a stranger’s house, seeking refuge in an area of Kenya where her ethnic group, the Kikuyu, is strong. It is, supposedly, her homeland.

The British schoolteacher jailed in Sudan for allowing her 7-year-old pupils to name a class teddy bear Muhammad was pardoned Monday by the Sudanese president and left for England later in the evening.